You want to help, here's a few tips on how be really good at it.
One of the best things you can do for someone else is offer practical advice from your own search.
With each day you networked or use any of the continually changing on-line resources, like Proformative, TwitJobs or LinkedIn, you learned on how to more effectively seek a job (regardless if you were employed or not during your search). You built up a set of experiences that can only be learned by going through a job search.
Here are four tips to make your advice effective:
ONE: Address their immediate search problems. The best advice is what advances another’s search, so you might as well start with what can help this person.
TWO: Understand their situation. One of the recommendations on my website is to use everything as a starter idea. While there are common issues in search, the circumstances and style is unique to each person. The closer your advice fits their situation, the higher likelihood they can use it.
THREE: Limit your advice to three or four items. You will likely have loads of excellent advice to give, I found from being on both sides of the table that after 3-4 items, it’s hard to keep listening. It’s not that anyone is trying to be impolite, but they are focused on the advice which addresses the immediate issue.
Also, the more significant of a change in their approach your advice represents, then fewer items the better. You’ve given them a good deal to think about, so the rest is lost.
FOUR: Share your mistakes. I found my mistakes were invaluable lessons to both myself and colleagues. But also, I found that people responded better to advice if I started with a mistake and eventual solution of my own.
A job seeker has many issues that can gnaw at their self-confidence. If you keep your delivery direct and positive the job seeker will hear the issue, not that they are doing something wrong.
Thanks for networking with colleagues in transition, we can all use a helping hand from time to time and it’s more than often that the help you extend can make all the difference in landing a new role. Each connection, idea, referral, lead, etc. all add up over time.
Good luck today.
Mark Richards